Collaborative Intranets: A (Sometimes Uneasy) Marriage of People and Technology

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Collaborative IntranetsA (Sometimes Uneasy)
Marriage of People and Technology

• Fredda N. Lerner
• October 31, 2001

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Enterprise Knowledge
Enterprise Knowledge Social Capital
Intellectual Capital
Components of Social Capital
Knowledge Nexus
Components of Intellectual Capital
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Knowledge Management

• Enterprise Knowledge Management (KM) is a
  collaborative, integrated strategy to create,
  capture, organize, access, use and reuse
  enterprise knowledge assets

The Intranet provides access and enables use of
enterprise knowledge
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Agenda

• Content
• Managing content
• Process
• Managing change
• The Collaborative Intranet
• Case study

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Enterprise Content
Enterprise Content
Corporate Culture
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Tacit Knowledge
Explicit Knowledge
? 80
? 20

• Who knows how (expertise and skills)
• Acquired through practice and experience
• Complex to capture
• Qualitative

• Who knows what
• Formalized and specialized
• Available for capture
• Quantitative

Unstructured Data
Structured Data
? 80
? 20

• Databases
• Spreadsheets

• Documents, images
• Audio, video, multimedia
• eMail

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Using Content

• KM implementation affects the tacit versus
  explicit, i.e., 8020, ratio
• More tacit knowledge becomes explicit
• Accessible
• Applicable
• Usable
• Reusable
• As more tacit knowledge is captured
• Enterprise knowledge base and content grow
• Tacit versus explicit ratio shifts, i.e., 8020 ?
  2080

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Agenda

• Content
• Managing content
• Process
• Managing change
• The Collaborative Intranet
• Case study

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Intranet Content Lifecycle
Corporate controlled
Destroy
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Content and an Intranet

• Static content, e.g., documents, records, images
• Dynamic content, e.g., interactive forms
• Web pages, modules, and page elements such as
  text, graphics, controls, multimedia,
  advertisements, and scripts
• Applications, middle-tier components, database
  procedures, and other programming logic
• Database information that directly supports the
  creation of dynamic Web pages or enables the
  customer to execute business transactions
• Downloadable files of all types

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Intranet Content Management

• Design
• Authoring
• Review
• Approval
• Conversion
• Storage
• Testing
• Staging

• Deployment
• Maintenance and updates
• Retirement and archival
• Reporting and analysis
• Automated workflow and audit

THE GOOD NEWS Anyone can be a content provider
THE BAD NEWS Anyone can be a content provider
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Generic CM Application Functionality
Library Services
Content Development
Content Interchange

• Library services
• Check-in and check-out
• Version control
• Search and retrieval
• Foldering
• Security
• Indexing

• Workflow management
• Navigation
• Mark-up tools
• Intelligent objects
• Message-based project management

• Product suite
• Object middleware
• File-format conversion
• Neutral interchange formats
• Language translators

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Benefits of Content Management

• Provides control
• Intranet information is timely, correct, and
  accessible
• Increased responsiveness to the end user
• Single point of contact for content management
  and change management
• Minimize retention of out-of-date content
• Decrease the business process time
• Organize and share information

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Agenda

• Content
• Managing content
• Process
• Managing change
• The Collaborative Intranet
• Case study

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Process

• Business rules govern all business processes
• Who does what
• When does it happen
• What transpires
• What documents change
• Processes naturally evolve over time
• Usually manual and paper-driven
• Can have as many work-arounds as participants
• Automated processes are known as workflows

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The Three Rs of Workflow

• Rules determine which items take which routes at
  each decision point, and what needs to be done to
  them in the transformation process.
• Roles define what each workers specific
  function(s) in the process of delivering the
  organizations goods and services.
• Routes are the paths the workitems take in being
  transformed from inputs to outputs.

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WfM Features

• WfM system features include
• ability to set rules and policies governing flow
  and fulfillment of work tasks
• ability to audit, monitor workloads and
  reallocate resources accordingly
• the capability to revise the flow of work after
  identifying inefficiencies and bottlenecks

• Workflow Management (WfM) enables organizations
  to define and manage work processes in terms of
  participants, inputs and outputs, and to route
  work tasks, and the information required to
  perform them, automatically throughout the
  organization.
• Workflow can route any type of information,
  including images, electronic documents, video,
  e-mail, etc., coded or uncoded data.
• A WfM system can manage workflows ranging from
  small groups through the entire enterprise.
• A WfM system effectively binds and digitizes
  enterprise business processes.

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Agenda

• Content
• Managing content
• Process
• Managing change
• The Collaborative Intranet
• Case study

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Change Management

• Change management is the process of helping an
  organization to operate successfully in a new
  environment, by optimizing--
• The understanding that the workforce has of the
  new environment
• The ability of the workforce to operate
  effectively in the new environment
• The willingness of the workforce to accept and
  adapt to the new environment

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Change Management

• Provides traceability
• Manages content change as it is published on the
  Intranet
• As close to real time as possible
• Business rules based
• Auditable
• Current and timely content only
• Legacy content either deleted or archived
  (records management)
• Incorporates automated workflow management

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Change and Culture

• Organizational culture varies from rigid to
  flexible
• Larger and older organizations tend to be more
  rigid
• Rigid cultures are slower to change
• Individuals within rigid cultures can be much
  more receptive to change and therefore can serve
  as catalysts (and champions) for change

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Cultural Evolution

• Knowledge sharing
• Large knowledge base
• Web-based applications
• Intranet
• Automated workflows
• Integrated e-document management systems
• Newer business models
• Communities

• Knowledge hoarding
• Little or knowledge base
• Paper-based
• Older business models
• Little automated workflow, usually by e-mail
• Client/server applications
• Vertical organizational models

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Resistance to Change

• Organizations resist change for several reasons
• Large-scale change programs require changes in
  behavior
• Change programs often require people to think in
  new ways (e.g., learn new skills or tools)
• Change will not be sustainable without the
  support and active participation of those being
  asked to change

• There are numerous issues at play in new system
  implementation
• Changed service offering
• Loss of perceived control of the source
• Changed organizations, processes, reporting
  relationships, and responsibilities
• Displaced IT workers

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Incorporating Change

• Human nature tends to resist change
• Users may (unknowingly) construct their own
  barriers
• To integrate and adopt a new system and/or
  process into the corporate culture, identify and
  motivate using WIIFM (Whats in it for me?)
• Motivate/reward for knowledge sharing

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Change and Technology

• Business drives technology
• New business opportunities drive new technologies
• Intranet content can reflect the enterprise
  evolution
• Embracing change is key for adoption of new
  technology
• Resistance to change is the single biggest
  deterrent to adoption of technology, a digital
  knowledge base, and a living intranet

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Agenda

• Content
• Managing content
• Process
• Managing change
• The Collaborative Intranet
• Case Study

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Intranet Evolution

• The collaborative Intranet is the evolving
  enterprise operating environment
• It has progressed from a static repository where
  vertical entities post general information to an
  interactive hub of collaboration,
  standardization, knowledge-sharing, business
  transactions, training, and document distribution
• The Intranet can serve as the corporate/enterprise
  knowledge base.

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Intranet Components

• User interface to the enterprise
• Content aggregation
• Search (Intranet, Internet and document
  management system)
• Communities
• Workflow management
• Categorization and tagging
• Application integration
• Enterprise knowledge base

• Collaborative project workspaces
• Taxonomy (classification of tacit and explicit
  knowledge)
• Personalization
• Single sign-on and security
• Caching
• Uniform user interface
• Metadata dictionary

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Knowledge Islands
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Why Use an Intranet?

• Positive motivation
• Personal reward
• Personal benefit/growth
• Group/enterprise benefit
• Excitement
• Negative motivation
• No other options
• Ramifications if new procedures not followed
• Fear

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Intranet Challenges

• Inconsistent Environment
• HW/SW configurations
• Security
• Reliability
• Inconsistent application support and
  troubleshooting
• Reduced portability and scalability
• Content management
• Change management
• User acceptance, adoption and use
• Personalization

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General Implementation Issues

• Who has what
• Who does what
• Who knows what
• Who knows how
• What is the process

• Lack of consistency
• Lack of relevant documentation
• Lack of reliable accountability
• Lack of reliable guidelines and governance
• Lack of comprehensive and repeatable processes

Lack of control
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Issues and Risks

• WfM perceived as policeman
• Reward systems based on intranet use
• Intranet content is limited
• User experience and expectations are different
  for every user
• How can users expectations be met?
• Users have different perspectives
• User and enterprise perceptions of technology as
  the problem solver

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Risk Mitigation

• Initially, the Intranet content can be very
  focused (see case study)
• Potentially initial greater acceptance and
  adoption
• Intranet content and breadth will grow as it
  gains enterprise-wide acceptance
• Pilot application and receive feedback
• Include warm and fuzzy content
• Mimic the paper world
• Too much change can turn off many potential users
• Perform BPR (if needed) on the digital processes
  when they are more mature and users are more
  comfortable

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A Successful Marriage

• Define Intranet value
• Users will have a better understanding
• Value all content providers
• Non-technical users are important, too
• Recognize achievement from content providers
• Individual or group
• Celebrate successes
• Seek and integrate quick successes into the
  Intranet
• Create a strong identity and sense of community
• Motivate and reward through WIIFM
• Reward for knowledge sharing

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Agenda

• Content
• Managing content
• Process
• Managing change
• The Collaborative Intranet
• Case Study

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Implementation Methodology
DefineVision and Strategy
Conduct Gap Analysis
Establish Guidance, Value Proposition Objectives
and Goals
Phase 2
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Implementing a KM Intranet

• Refine enterprise vision
• Define enterprise goals
• Subdivide goals into palatable KM subprojects
• Define subproject goals
• Define subproject tasks
• Develop metrics of success for each subproject
• Iterate as needed
• Incorporate completed project into IT strategy
• Redefine enterprise goals

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Case Study Introduction

• The Organization - NIH DCAB
• 75 Project Managers
• 3,000 Construction Projects per Year
• In-house and contracted services
• Large and small projects
• Potential (significant) administrative delays
• Little collaborative efforts
• No effective documentation and use of lessons
  learned

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Case Study - The Problem

• ISO 9000 Certification
• Existing system paper-based
• Difficult to easily monitor projects
• Funding requests/contracts etc., lost
• Unable to manage projects collaboratively
• Auditing very difficult

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Case Study - The Solution

• Automated workflow system that follows ISO 9000
  procedure manual
• Electronic forms for all form requirements with
  integrated workflows
• Central repository for all project related
  documents
• Named user access control to prevent casual
  access
• On-line, real time collaboration with threaded
  discussions

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Case Study - The Solution
Logon to PIN
Enterprise Workspace
Personal Workspace
DCAB Teams and Other Groups
PIN
Project Workspace
Team 3 Research East
Project Officer Name
PO Lerner, Fredda
Active projects
Active Projects
Specific project
HCA0006
Categories of Work
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Case Study - The Solution

• Integration with legacy contracting systems for
  consolidated view of cost information
• Ad hoc and standard reporting
• Automated download of project from mainframe
  project initiation system
• On-line time cards
• Auditable
• Completely web-based

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Case Study - Technical Details

• Solution included customization using three COTS
  software packages
• Open Text - Livelink Intranet
• IBI - Web Focus
• Pure Edge - XML Forms
• During system development, the project team used
  Livelink to
• Demonstrate and learn capabilities and
  limitations
• Actively use the tool prior to deployment
• Practice what we preach
• Project duration from requirements analysis to
  deployment was approximately five months

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PIN Enterprise Workspace
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PIN Home Page
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For More Information...
Fredda Lerner Booz-Allen and Hamilton 8283
Greensboro Drive McLean, VA 22102 703-377-1643 ler
ner_fredda_at_bah.com